Latest News - Page 1716

Tesla might get all of the headlines with its electric vehicles, electric Semi Truck and electric Cybertruck... but that doesn't mean they're the only ones dominating in the field. General Motors has just thrown its hat into the EV ring, and will build EVs in the United States moving forward.

General Motors president Mark Reuss announced on Monday morning that the company will renovate its current Detroit-Hamtramck facility located in Detroit, Michigan. The renovation will cost $2.2 billion and will see GM having a factory solely for battery electric vehicles, with teh first to be a BEV pickup truck that will come off the production line in late 2021.

After that, GM has promised that it will start making electric autonomous taxi pods that will be used by Cruise, while $800 million will be invested into supplier tooling and related startup costs for BEV production. Once the factory is retooled and ready to go, General Motors has said that it will create "more than 2,200 good-paying US manufacturing jobs".

Google's new Stadia service is still technically in early access, but it's giving away free games that not everyone can get, creating a kind of gated-off exclusivity aimed at appeasing its userbase at the detriment of possible subscribers.

Stadia is kind of confusing. Right now the service is exclusive to those who bought the $129 premium editions. You can't just buy a $10 a month Stadia Pro membership and call it a day, nor can you play the upcoming free Stadia version. Both simply aren't out yet. Your only option is to buy the expensive bundle or sit and wait until the club opens up and lets you in. This is a tremendously disadvantageous business model for any kind of subscription service that's predicated on widespread accessibility and ease-of-use.

Moreover, those who bought into the Founder's and Premiere Editions also get access to monthly free games. The games rotate out though, just like Xbox LIVE and PlayStation Plus games, so you have to get them while they're still free. So anyone who purchases Stadia on February 1 doesn't get access to last month's free games (Rise of the Tomb Raider and Samurai Shodown). This is pretty rough for someone who bought the early access platform for $129, and annoying for those who just want to jump in and try the service without making a big commitment.

Pokemon Home has two tiers: a $16 a year premium plan, or a very limited free version. Here's what's included with both.

Today GameFreak revealed more details on Pokemon Home, a mobile app that's releasing February 11, and fans might not be too happy. Core features like the Global Trade System and exporting Pokemon from the Pokemon Bank are being locked behind a $15.99 a year subscription fee. That's almost as much as a year's worth of Nintendo Switch Online.

Pokemon Home actually has two software versions: A Nintendo Switch version and a mobile phone app. You'll need to download and use both of them to get access to all the service's features. For example, you can't trade Pokemon in the Switch Pokemon Home version, and you can't export Sword and Shield Pokemon in the mobile version (which makes sense).

Instead of buffering up its game development studios, Microsoft spent up to $30 million on Ninja's exclusive Mixer streaming deal.

In its continuing efforts to monetize engagement and establish digital dominance, Microsoft is spending tens of millions on exclusivity contracts for some of the industry's biggest influencers. The biggest, Tyler Ninja Blevins, joined Microsoft's Mixer platform in August 2019, and many other big fish have followed.

So how much did Ninja earn? According to Ader CEO Justin Warden, Ninja could've made up to $30 million from the Mixer deal. That's almost enough to fund development of a AAA game for Microsoft's Xbox Studios branch (certainly enough for a AA endeavor).

A bit ago VR developer Immersive VR Education said a next-gen PSVR headset would accompany the PlayStation 5's launch in 2020. This was a mistake, and the company is now walking back its claims.

Sony may not release a new PlayStation VR headset along with the PlayStation 5's in holiday 2020 after all. At least there's no confirmation of it from Sony or other developers. Immersive VR Education CEO David Whelan clarifies the firm's previous statement and says it was an error based on supposition.

"That statement was picked up in error from a trading update sent out to our investors," Whelan told UploadVR in a statement. "We mentioned to our investor relations company that we intend to fully support the PS5 with our current suite of software. We are not confirming that there is a PSVR Version 2 in the works. Our investor relations company picked it up as a new headset for PS5 which might not necessarily be the case."

Half-Life is a tremendously powerful force in gaming. It's so strong that it could propel VR gaming, a niche market, into mainstream mass audiences.

The new VR-exclusive Half-Life: Alyx sparked a massive sales spike in VR headsets, especially with Valve's own proprietary Index HMD, which has been sold out for weeks now. But we haven't had any actual numbers to illustrate what I'd like to call the Half-Life Effect...until now that is.

According to analyst firm SuperData, Valve sold a massive 103,000 Index headsets after revealing Half-Life: Alyx. That's an absolutely incredible amount of VR hardware sales in little over a month's time, and total HMD purchases doubled from Q3 to Q4 after the game was announced.

In the past five years, Nintendo's mobile games have accrued over $1 billion from microtransaction spending, analyst firm SensorTower reports.

Nintendo's mobile strategy is paying off big time. Since Super Mario Run's release in 2015, Nintendo has earned over $1 billion in worldwide revenues from its mobile titles. The lion's share of those earnings are from the mega-popular Fire Emblem Heroes, which has pulled in a tremendous $656 million in lifetime revenues, making up roughly 61% of Nintendo's total mobile earnings. The next in line is Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, which raked in just a sixth of those revenues with $131 million.

These games are mostly popular in Nintendo's native country of Japan, though, and haven't gained tremendous traction in other regions. Roughly 54%, or $581 million, of its mobile cash was generated in Japan, whereas the United States made up 29% or $316 million. This makes sense given Japan's appetite for mobile and handheld games.

An admittedly farfetched-sounding rumor says Resident Evil 8 will have zombies, wolf-like monstrosities, and keep the same first-person view from the previous game.

Anonymous unverified sources tell Biohazard Cast via email some interesting (yet outlandish) rumors about Resident Evil 8. The email, which could've been sent by anyone with any kind of info, claims the game will be a slight departure from the series with a focus on being "clever" (a pretty vague description).

The main tidbits say RE8 will star Ethan Winters from Resident Evil 7, hinting at a direct sequel timeline, and be set in an alpine climate with snow and ice. Wolf monsters haunt the nearby forests, the email claims, possibly even werewolves, and zombies return to chew on our brains. Eventually gamers find themselves in a medieval castle which takes on the role of the house in RE7 or the mansion in RE1, and there's a incorporeal female entity constantly haunting and chasing us.

The recent PS5 devkit console revision leak was just a fake, and not even a real one--it was all digital.

That new PlayStation 5 hardware leak was too good to be true. In fact, it was too good to be real. The console itself was rendered by a VFX specialist using Blender and injected into the footage. It wasn't actually physically there, there was no special 3D printed case or hardware mock-up. Just a digital render complete with a PS4-style lightstrip with blinking orange, blue, and white light transitions.

The creator, Oby 1, did a short making of video that confirmed the fake-out. We get to see a step-by-step process on how the bootup screen and the digital console render were made.

The United States and China have signed a new trade pact to dampen 2019's international tariffs while also eliminating the extra 25% tax on video game electronics.

A now-cancelled tariff could've substantially raised the price of next-gen consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, both of which may already be expensive enthusiast products priced at $499 each. The new regulations peel back original plans for extra import taxes on vital gaming components.

The previous regulations, which called for a hefty 25% ad valorum tax tacked onto select goods like video game hardware components imported from China, would've disrupted the critical supply chains of major console-makers like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. The Big Three banded together and warned the U.S. government that the tariffs could force costs to rise and affect the economy (higher prices could mean lower sales). Sony in particular delivered two warnings.

Tesla has earned itself a new achievement, as Elon Musk's company has managed to overtake Volkswagen and become the world's second most valuable car manufacturer.

Tesla's market evaluation has risen over $102.66 billion, which exceeds the German car manufacturer Volkswagen at $89.68 billion. Other big companies such as General Motors are currently sitting at fourth with $49.88 billion, Honda at fifth with $49.71 billion, and Daimler at sixth with $48.29 million.

So who's first? Toyota has pulled ahead and is in the lead by far, with a market value of $230.95 billion. It seems that Tesla has a lot of leg work to do to take first place, which means that the company is going to be aiming to sell a lot more cars. In 2019 Tesla only sold 367,000 cars, compared to Volkswagen's 11 million. 2020 and beyond will be a different story, as the company will be pushing the electric vehicle standard further than ever before.

NASA has announced via a new press release that Axiom Space out of Houston will be the first company to provide NASA with a commercial destination module for the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA is fast approaching its goal to commercialize the ISS and enable private astronauts to visit the floating laboratory in low-Earth orbit. The press release reveals that NASA has selected Axiom Space as the first company to provide NASA with a module that will attach to the ISS's Node 2 forward port. This is an important milestone for both NASA and the coming low-Earth orbit economy.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, said "Axiom's work to develop a commercial destination in space is a critical step for NASA to meet its long-term needs for astronaut training, scientific research, and technology demonstrations in low-Earth orbit. We are transforming the way NASA works with industry to benefit the global economy and advance space exploration. It is a similar partnership that this year will return the capability of American astronauts to launch to the space station on American rockets from American soil."

Google has announced that it will no longer be working for free for the government. Yep, that's right; Google will be charging law enforcement for any assistance they provide in recovering data.

In a new report from The New York Times, Google has released a "Notice of Reimbursement" which states that beginning on January 13th, 2020 or soon thereafter, "Google will require pursuant to statutory authority that government agencies serving legal process on Google reimburse Google for costs reasonably necessary and directly incurred in complying with the legal process according to the following reimbursement schedule:"

To make that sound less confusing, basically what Google is saying is that it will no longer be helping law enforcement pull up data on people as it costs them money to do so. If law enforcement wishes to use Google's data, they will have to pay, and the cost depends on what the type of legal process is. Google has provided a "reimbursement schedule" that lays out what law enforcement will be required to reimburse Google if they decide to use its services.

SpaceX is in full preparation to launch 60 more Starlink satellites into Earth's atmosphere. Unfortunately, due to weather conditions, the launch has been delayed.

SpaceX took to their official Twitter account on January 27 to announced that the weather for today's launch is "50% favorable". The space exploration company was planning on live streaming the whole event, but unfortunately, due to "strong upper-level winds" SpaceX is "standing down today" and will re-schedule the launch to Wednesday, January 29, at 9:06 a.m., 14:06 UTC. Tune into the live stream here.

Back in November, 2019 SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites in its effort to establish a global internet connection. Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO and founder expects to have established at least an early version of a global internet connect by late 2020. Musk and SpaceX eventually want to have 42,000 Starlink satellites in Earth's orbit.

Since Microsoft's new pledge to become carbon negative by 2030, a study has surfaced online regarding how much the gaming industry as a whole impacts the environment carbon wise.

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory back in 2019 conducted a study that found that in the United States, the annual carbon emissions from the gaming industry were equal to that of 85 million running refrigerators. Another metric that is equal to that of the gaming industry's carbon footprint is 5 million cars.

Evan Mills, the study's lead author and a research affiliate at the University of California, Berkeley said, "Over time, as the technology marches forward, [gaming systems] become more energy-intensive." Grist.org also explains that even if gaming related devices become more energy-efficient, the devices' overall power consumption can still be increased as video games become more technically demanding. If you are interested in reading more about this, check out this link here.

The International Space Station is a floating mechanical laboratory, and with almost everything mechanical, sometimes things fall apart. It's just the way things are.

Since things sometimes fall apart, they need to be fixed by humans so they can then be used again. This is exactly what happened on the ISS, as astronauts Andrew Morgan and Luca Parmitano were given the job of going on a spacewalk to fix the coolant pumps on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. The cosmic ray detection instrument was out of commission due to the cooling system failing, but since this past Saturday's spacewalk, the instrument might just be ready for use.

After the initial spacewalk, both astronauts decided to double-check the coolant system to make sure their work was 100%. To their surprise, there was actually a leak found in the cooling system, and after discovering this, the leak was repaired. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is valued at around $2 billion dollars and is designed to shine some light on what dark matter actually is and how it works. NASA believes that since the repairs have been successful that the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer should work until the end of the ISS's lifespan.

We know that Sony will be unveiling its next-gen PlayStation 5 in February, but one of those important steps is trademarking the PlayStation 5 -- something that the Japanese giant just applied for in Switzerland.

Our friends at LetsGoDigital have picked up the story, noticing that Sony has applied for the 'PS5' trademark on January 27, 2020 with the IGE IPI (Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property). Sony submitted the application under Class 9, which includes game computers (obviously).

Sony has been step-by-step revealing the PlayStation 5 and has been far ahead of the curve with gamers compared to Microsoft, with far more buzz generated (for free) for the PlayStation 5 versus Microsoft's next-gen Xbox Series X console. The new patent application for the PS5 is yet another step towards Sony's full detailing and unveiling of the PlayStation 5 during the PlayStation Meeting in February, which is just weeks away.

Microsoft recently announced its carbon emission reduction battle plan that will eventually make the company "carbon negative".

According to Grist.org, Microsoft's largest carbon footprint device, out of every device the company makes, is the Xbox. Grist says that a spokesperson from Microsoft said that this is the case due to the amount of electricity people use while playing video games.

An example of just how much carbon this is, take the Xbox One X, each Xbox One X will produce more than 1 ton of carbon emissions over eight-years. 86% of the 1 ton is just from the Xbox One X being used, the remaining 14 percent is from manufacturing, shipping, etc.

The creators behind the hit show Rick and Morty have announced that a brand new show will be arriving exclusively on Hulu this May.

The new show is called 'Solar Opposites' and its about a family of four aliens that are from an advanced planet and are forced into living in America. Craig Erwich, who is the senior vice president of Hulu originals announced the new series at the Television Critics Association 2020 Winter Press Tour in Pasadena just this past Friday.

The show is being created by Rick and Morty star Justin Roiland and Mike McMahn who is a producer for Rick and Morty. Judging by the creative drive put behind Solar Opposites I would say that the new TV show will have the same ridiculous comedic sense that Rick and Morty does. I'd expect the same type of brilliant humour but portrayed in a different way since the characters are now all aliens. On May 8th this year, all eight episodes of the first season of Solar Opposites will be released on Hulu. (There is also season 2 in production).

It seems like every time I write about the upcoming Uncharted movie, its bad news, and this time is no different. Uncharted fans, I apologize, but I have to inform you that the movie has been delayed.

The Uncharted movie has been in development for over a decade now, and just when you would probably think things are looking up, they aren't. The movie has suffered many production delays, which have then caused the hired director to leave the movie. This has happened six times already, the following directors were hired by Sony and then left on their own merit; David O. Russell, Seth Gordon, Neil Burger, Dan Trachtenberg, Shawn Levy, and Travis Knight.

According to Deadline, the movie will now officially be delayed until March 5th, 2021. Originally the film was meant to be released at the end of this year (December 2020), but after the sixth director, Travis Knight, left the film back in late December 2019 that release date was put into question. Tom Holland is set to play a young Nathan Drake, and Mark Wahlberg is cast as Victor "Sully" Sullivan. Holland is shooting the new Spider-Man movie at the moment, and the colliding scheduling has no doubt caused some issues with filming the Uncharted movie.